Why, hello there. So nice of you to stop by. I hope you’ve had a wonderful week? It’s been a bit of a quiet one at Little Bird HQ – it’s that early-February lull before Fashion Week kicks off – although one very exciting thing did happen this week… we got a house! If you’ve been reading the blog for a while you’ll know we’ve had two near misses with houses recently, but it really is third time lucky and we move into our new place (complete with solid oak doors, exposed beams and wood burning stove) on 5th March. I’ll be kicking off the Second Hand Home challenge (furnishing the place with charity shop, car boot and vintage shop bargains) as soon as we move in.

Here’s what else I’ve been up to this week…

Saturday afternoon Nando’s – my favourite

Leeds Corn Exchange by night

Valentine’s Day isn’t something Rob and I really celebrate – we do nice things for each other all year round, why save it for just one day? We couldn’t resist the V Day special M&S meal though – mozzarella and tomato tartlets, sirloin steak with chunky chips, chocolate and raspberry puddings, a bottle of Cava and a box of chocolate. Delicious.

Tell me – what have you been up to this week? Are you celebrating Valentine’s Day or dismissing it as a Hallmark Holiday (like me)?

PS – I’ve listed half my wardrobe on eBay – anything you fancy?

Why do all items of clothing now come with those coat hanger ribbons? Doesn’t everyone just snip them out?

The highly irritating and largely useless (considering I fold it up and store it in a drawer) coat hanger ribbons from my Next cardigan. RIP.

My boyfriend (or rather, my fiancé) and I have been together for almost nine years, so I think it’s safe to say we have a pretty solid relationship. We share values, ideals, morals, likes and dislikes. If you wanted to use a Hallmark cliché to describe our pairing, it’d be two peas in a pod.

But he just doesn’t understand my need for ‘stuff’.

Here are a few of the conversations we’ve had about my increasingly erratic second hand purchases…

“That table you bought doesn’t go with anything else in our living room. It looks like you took it from an old person’s house.” (Referring to the dark wood glass top vintage table I picked up for £3)

“Why is that bag hanging there? And those others on the wardrobe door. I always bump into them. Getting into bed is like skiing a slalom.” (The hanging bag is a Chanel paper carrier stuffed with scarves. The bags on the wardrobe door are various canvas shoppers and a wicker handbag I bought at a boot sale)

“You have between seven and eight hundred coats. I have to hang my coat on a piece of scrap wood.” (I do have a ridiculous number of coats and jackets hanging on our coat stand)

“Why are there so many of your shoes here?”
(me) “There aren’t! Mine are in the wardrobe. Those are yours.”
“I have three pairs of shoes in total. These are yours.”
(me) “Oh yeah. And the ones in the wardrobe.”

“Please don’t tell me you’ve bought another tea set. You don’t even drink tea.” (As I walked through the door with a new tea set from a charity shop jaunt)

“I hate this brush.” (Referring to the vintage dressing table brush I bought at a boot sale, which sits on the edge of my dresser and falls off every time he walks past)

“Why can’t I have a wardrobe in the bedroom? I have to have a wardrobe in another room, and it’s still full of your stuff.”

I’m eternally grateful I have him to remind me that I really don’t need another tarnished gold mirror or set of babushka dolls.